Consolidate Backers' Forum?

Hey guys,

I'm constantly interested in making it easier to consume content on our forums. One of the places where I think we can improve is by consolidating perceived "duplicate" boards. The Backers Forum in particular is used, basically, for General Discussions purposes anymore. Should we integrate this board into GD? Do you see any drawbacks? This board has an awesomely rich history, but I'd love to bring everyone together.

While the "backer exclusivity" isn't a big privilege, a separate area for coordinating and updates on backer rewards might remain helpful.

But then, I already got my reward: the game!

Considering how little it's been used for that since it's inception compared to, as Brad accurately points out it's always basically been 99% of a GD duplicate I don't see how it's any big loss really.

Mike

Well, since theres no 'Backers Only' stuff to share anymore, I dont see a reason to keep the subboard anymore. Might as well merge it then.

The original purpose of the backers forum was to be a private forum only accessible to people who own PA. It may currently look like a general discussion, if someone posts here, it's meant to be only for users of PA.

And the general discussion forum is already pretty big. I'd like to keep this forum, because it is sometimes really handy to post things that don't draw that much attention as they do in general discussion. But we should have more 'for backers only:' dev threads to keep it what it used to be. I mean, this is the only place where you can keep things a little secret to people who don't have the game. Perhaps we could get sneekpeaks at upcoming stuff here, couple days before it is revealed to everyone. Just an idea.


Now that you're on to removing forums, are you going to do something with the announcements forum first that hasn't been used in a year?

I'd like to! That's sort of part of this process.

You could copy all treads and just keep it for sneakpeaks for early backers. But I am fine with combining them for everything since almost nothing happens there anyway

Mixed about this. Backer's forum was promised in the Kickstarter, and removing it would be "historically" sad.
I would say to keep it for now, or at least until all other Backers-Only stuff as been cleared out (physical rewards...).

Agreed.
Some backers may have something to say, or something they already said,
that they'd rather not become available to the public domain.

Maybe say something like -
"Hey folks, we're planning to merge/end the Backer Forum on 34th of March (Yes, I know!)
next year, and if there's anything you feel uncomfortable about being seen by all and sundry,
message me at ****"

Also (Hadn't thought of this earlier...), won't the backers still be as privileged
whenever there's a 2.0 etc version in the future?

Ever since the Backers forum was opened to anyone who bought the game, rather than just the Kickstarter backers, the purpose of this subforum was basically invalidated. Might as well nuke it if no one is willing to use it for its intended purpose.

Just close it off to anyone who bought the game post-1.0 and make it clear what's actually supposed to go there.

Currently, this board serves no purpose. Either start using it to give us info you don't want immediately public (although honestly, stuff will get leaked within minutes anyway) or just close it up.

Lock it, it served its purpose.

Since the release of the game there really is no need for the backer board to be exclusive.

That being said, there should still be an exclusive sticky thread for backer reward updates.

Ya I agree, doesn't seem like there much need for it.

All dev announcements seem to go in gd, and it will make it quicker for me to keep up to date by having it all in one place.

Be sad to see it go, but I think benefits out way the drawbacks.

It costs literally nothing to keep this board up, and a semi-private board where you know that you are speaking *only* to an audience of owners/backers is very useful sometimes, especially when you want to post something that you don't want to share with the pirates, such as mods or other useful tweaks.

It's pretty apparent most of us are cool with merging this into GD -- I'll get in touch with Lennard.

As for backers-only messages, let's see what we can do with that in the future! That seemed to be the number one reason against a potential move.

I agree, nuke it. Hasn't been useful since beta.

I'm neutral on this subject though I'd keep it tell the rewards are mailed out. On second thought do you really want to intermingle with the peons in GD.